


The light we had won

by lilith_morgana



Series: Our endless numbered days [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Grey Wardens, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8244653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: After their fall from grace the Grey Wardens are in disarray and there are no reports from Weisshaupt. The Inquisition is being disbanded and the Champion of Kirkwall is gone. But war is coming and now is not the time for rest. The Hero of Ferelden joins forces with the Inquisitor as they both hope to find some answers and allies along the way.





	1. Prologue: to the wisest I sang

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kind of ensemble/roadtrip story I've wanted to write forever. Expect Wardens, plenty of female characters, a healthy dose of romance and some speculation about darkspawn, archdemons and other such pleasantries. I hope you'll come along for the ride.
> 
> This story uses the same DA:O canon as my ‘Sense and Accountability’-verse and is compatible with those stories, for people who like continuity. It’s also very much a standalone.

  
  
  
  
_To the wisest I sang,_  
_To the wing’d cup-bearers of the tall sky-vaulting_

\----  
  
  
  
  
  
The magic of the old fortress is broken, it floods and shatters.  
  
So much history to drown in here where the shadows of the past collide with the tendrils of magic that beckons and burns inside her blood. No defenses within reach, everything is wide-open and she finds it horrifyingly tempting, the way her body responds. All her life has been a momentum, a careful, conscientious life with balance as a guiding force and this is its complete opposite.  
  
This is the end.  
  
She used to fear it - no youth ought to think of death and not tremble - though not in many years and no longer for the same reasons. She has feared fading out, dying an insignificant shade remembered by no one; she has feared a spectacular downfall, the kind they teach you all about in the Circle. Lately, however, she has feared the death of them all, her rousing speeches no longer managing to conceal the fact that they are running out of time, of hope, of bodies against the inevitable darkness.  
  
_You know it won’t matter. You know it, Clarel. You know what must be done before your time is up._  
  
The Inquisitor’s presence is a promising whisper now that the corrupted noise has ceased but it’s late, nearly too late for everything and Clarel is _tired_ .  
  
This young woman with the Fade burning in her palm looks tired, too, but she’s young yet, she must prevail.  
  
This young woman and the old Warden by her side.  
  
Clarel had been eager to blame him when an opportunity presented itself, has been wanting to tear him down ever since she learned the Order was stopped at the Fereldan border and heard what the new regent did to her brothers and sisters if he managed to catch them. He had not defended his actions when they finally did meet face to face, Clarel and the traitor teyrn of Ferelden. Not defended them but asked instead how she proposed complaining about them now would solve matters. A practical man, Warden Loghain. She must give him that.  
  
So many things he should know but no chance of ever telling him now.  
  
_Weisshaupt_ , she thinks as the dragon roars louder than the abominations she’s created, the bloody chaos she’s caused. _Oh_ , _Brother_.  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
“Maker, though I am but one, I have called in your name.”  
  
The words fill the chantry and she feels herself exhale sharply, not even aware she has been holding her breath.  
  
“And those who come to serve will know your glory. I remembered for them.”  
  
Back when she joined, a trembling coward of a recruit, skin and bones and misplaced hopes, one of the Senior Wardens in Val Royeaux had told her he kept a list of everyone who had ever drank from the chalice. _Those who do not survive the Joining has a place in our ranks, as well. Their sacrifice shall never be forgotten._ Seven of them the day she stepped forth and took her vows without truly understanding what in Andraste’s name she was doing. Seven of them. Six corpses at sunset while she alone had feasted on bread and soup and wine with the Order. They had read the names on the Senior Warden’s list out loud, recited them as though summoning ghosts and she had found the practice odd. She doesn’t any more.  
  
Ruth _remains_.  
  
When the ancient fortress crumble and her brothers and sister perish - betrayed and bloodied, some of them wrecked beyond recognition, beyond _humanity_ \- she crawls out of the ashes like vermin.  
  
In the deep prison of the other ancient fortress she waits for death, _asks_ for it, but it never comes.  
  
Val Chevin is a quiet place even with the slow drizzle of civil war turning into fragile ceasefire and then into plotting behind closed doors. Here, you worship the Maker and repeat your pleasantries and buy your bread in the street outside the Chantry. There are no darkspawn reports, no song in her head and the only news that reach them here are watered-down rumours of the Inquisition’s final whereabouts. Corypheus is defeated, they say. Peace remains.  
  
And Ruth.  
  
“They will see what can be gained, and though we are few against the wind, we are yours.”  
  
The Herald claims the Maker forgives but Ruth can’t bear the thought of being forgiven. _Of course you can’t,_ the spymaster of Skyhold had said to her, out of earshot just after the trial, and slipped her a proposal. _The Chantry serves many purposes, sanctuary is just one of them._ It’s certainly true; she has been asking for permanent lodgings here and been offered it with no further questions, no eyebrows raised.  
  
At the moment, at least, this is home.  
  
By the faint candlelight she writes slow, careful ciphers about Tevinter refugees and possible spies among the elven merchants in the outskirts of the city, writes dutifully and without delay but wonders quite often what good it will do. Today, in particular, offers a very scant report: a few activities around the city border that might, possibly, demand some further investigation but that will most likely turn out to be the work of some half-delusional drunk living in the streets there. The Game leaves hordes of broken men in its wake.  
  
Rising to her feet, she’s suddenly startled as the doors slam open and someone enters. It’s a cloaked figure, a hunched, heavily breathing visitor who falls to its knees before her and Ruth instinctively reaches for the dagger hidden in her tunic.  
  
“Please,” the figure says. It’s a man’s voice though it’s cramped, _tortured_ in a way that strikes a blow in her, invokes memories that will never truly sink, that will always float just below the surface. Those animal-like noises at Adamant, the roars against the sky. “Please, _sister_.”  
  
“I’m not-” Ruth begins but realises, with a cold chill down her spine, that he doesn’t mean chantry sister.  
  
“They’re all gone.” Tevinter, she thinks as the accent falls into place. “The Wardens in Minrathous. It’s… my fault. The Venatori… _fasta vass_ .”  
  
“Gone?” She watches as the man pushes back the cloak and reveals his face and then, as he turns to her again, she bites down hard on her lower lip to stop from screaming. Every bit of his face is destroyed by the Taint, his skin like grey scales and his eyes bloodshot, all light in them long gone. There’s magic in him, she can sense it, but it’s corrupted too, the way Warden mages’ magic becomes in the end. Turning on itself, the body almost dragging itself to the Deep Roads. Or, in this case, to a chantry in Val Chevin.  
  
"Dead. Like..." he draws a ragged breath. "Like me."  
  
Ruth has met Wardens on their way to their Calling but she's never seen anything like this, never someone so far gone.  
  
“Forgive me,” he shakes his head, trembling on the floor. “ Forgive me.”  
  
The man before her is no more than a decaying lump of flesh and cloth now, almost as if he’s vanishing a little more with every piece of his confession. Warden-Commander Clarel had once told her that powerful mages can sustain themselves during the most horrifying of times, can breathe life into their own blood to last as long as they may need to see a mission through.  
  
“What did you _do_?” Ruth asks even if she doesn’t want to know.


	2. Travelogues

  
  
  
  
The last village they passed had been completely overrun by darkspawn, most of the settlements burned to the ground or destroyed. Flames and ashes and _taint_ , a thick weave of it in the air.   
  
A majority of the people in Thedas have already forgotten about the darkspawn, she can tell. Shadows brew all around them but it’s the Qunari that cause worry, the rifts in the veil, the rumours of Tevinter magisters preparing for war, the daily turmoils of such vast numbers of nations in a state of constant unrest - so many things to plague a troubled mind. And darkspawn, most people believe, have returned underground to rest in the darkest of places.  
  
Bethany isn’t certain if that belief is a blessing of a curse, can’t say if it makes her work easier or harder.    
  
Naturally, Anderfels is a slightly different story. Here, forgetting is a luxury. This is a place where the invasion has never truly ceased and it leaves its marks, different ones, across the landscape and within the natives. She can feel a trace of familiarity sometimes when she’s looking into a hardened gaze or observing a cautious glance, a stance that is never truly at rest, always in flight.   
  
_One day we will stop_ , Marian promises in her memory. _Turn and face the tiger._   
  
“That is what I’m doing,” Bethany mumbles now, hunched over a corpse beside the road. There’s a pocket knife, some coins and a few empty vials scattered beside it and she’s never letting anything go to waste these days. “You would be proud.”  
  
She speaks to Marian all the time, has done it even more frequently as the news of her sister’s death have begun to reach across the lands. _Heard the Champion vanished without a trace_ , some say. _Fell with the Wardens at Adamant fortress_ , the more knowledgeable ones explain.   
  
Bethany knows the latter might very well be true. It’s a plausible scenario for someone as prone to danger as Marian, a sensible, even _dignified_ end for a fighter. But even after all this time there is no body and no other remains and without tangible proof she’s reluctant to believe in anything any more. The Maker himself would have to convince her if he turned up at her doorstep now, would need to reason with this seasoned warrior she has become. It’s not that she accuses Varric of lying in his letter - the one a new Warden recruit had delivered to her in Hunter Fell, almost _trembling_ , as though he had sensed the bad news without even opening the envelope - but he hadn’t been there, hadn’t actually witnessed her sister’s death. It’s _hope_ , certainly, hope that swells and swirls in her throat, but it goes beyond that.   
  
Growing up, Marian used to tease her incessantly about her gullibility. She’d talk Carver into the whole thing, too, and the two of them would create lies as tall as the trees outside their home and Bethany, wide-eyed, would swallow the bait every time.   
  
But that was in another lifetime. In the current one, she’s running her palm over a dead stranger’s face, closing the unseeing eyes to the world.   
  
She hasn’t been here long, only just arrived at the border a fortnight ago and is already on the move again, but already noticed signs of the unrest in the ranks she came to explore. _Nobody goes near the castle, Warden. You shouldn’t, either._   
  
She will not. Not without aid.  
  
Her magic _burns_ here, flares up like flames and cracks like thunder and even her softest, most subtle spells appear to grow wildly as she casts them. While she could scarcely be called a scholar she knows enough to be aware that these kinds of phenomena usually occurs where the Veil is thin or broken or where there are rifts in the fabrics that surround them and she won’t run willingly into _that_. It’s just that she might _have_ to, when she’s all out of options.   
  
Not for the first time since they parted ways, Bethany misses Aveline who had escorted her out of what they all believed was harm’s way, increasing the distance to Orlais a little bit further with each passing day. For several months they had been on the run together, a whole group of people like all those years ago when they first came to Kirkall, before she had taken her guards and returned home to the city of chains. _It appears I need to be there for the city not to crumble._ _  
_ _  
_At least she’s not alone. Aveline and Marian had seen to that.  
  
“Oh, _shiny_ ,” a voice says from behind a pile of corpses, pulling Bethany out of her introspection. “Haven’t seen this kind of dagger since I was a little girl. Gorgeous work on the hilt - __look.”  
  
“If you’re done looting the dead,” Bethany says, suddenly very tired. “I’d like to keep going, Isabela.”  
  
“Fine, sweetness.” The self-proclaimed Pirate Queen of the Eastern Seas rises from the ground, brushing dust from her knees and looks at the road ahead. “Let’s continue. We’re bound to stumble across a bar sooner or later.”    
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Ferelden smells of rain and blood.

It's like the darkspawn hordes and the troops of the civil war have left a permanent mark on the ground beneath and in the air above, licking the treetops with their quiet, beckoning stench. Not that it’s a Fereldan thing, not any more. The entire _south_ is fractured by small conflicts and larger disputes; travelling through it is witnessing a tapestry of war, of destruction and she’s so _tired_ of it by now it has begun to leave a hollow sound in her body. Even so, it feels particularly awful here, her memory still brimful of other days, other travels through forests that hadn’t been burned down by genlocks and fields where no civil war had bloodied the grass.   
  
Elissa leans back on her hands, stretching her sore legs by the fireplace as she watches her sole companion water the horses and inspect the supplies. Around them the night is thick and soundless, a night made for ambushes and assassins.  
  
“We have some ham,” Stroud announces when he returns to the fire. “And potatoes.”  
  
She nods, handing him a plate of grilled fish with today’s most treasured find: onions and carrots, freely given to them by a farmer who recognised her face. It’s rare by now - she has not been a Cousland for the past decade, barely even Fereldan - but it happens on occasion and there’s a small part of her that takes comfort in it. In _belonging_.   
  
“Tomorrow we ought to reach Redcliffe,” she says and pokes at the fire with the stick she used for the fish. It flares up slightly. “A rest day will do us good.”  
  
“Indeed. Let us hope there are beds available.” Stroud runs a hand across his forehead. “My back will be happier for it.”  
  
Elissa observes him in silence while they eat. Despite the Order they share he’s a recent companion on her travels and an accidental one at that. She’s kept to herself for years, coming and going in other people’s lives like something out of the Fade, slipping away into oblivion before she’s caught, carefully masking her own footsteps around Thedas. At present she’s merely a story, told by candlelight or shared in taverns over a tankard of ale. _Did you ever meet the Warden-Commander? The one who defeated the Archdemon?_ Soon, she thinks sometimes when the land seems particularly unforgiving, soon she will be reduced to the memory of a story, a legend in a dusty tome.   
  
That homelessness is a part of her being, carved into the spot where Highever once was.   
  
Stroud had been a glimmer of blue and silver in a crowded inn along the coastline, a vague flicker of recognition.   
  
She had wanted him to be someone else, had almost thought so for a heartbeat there in the grey afternoon light but she had not told him that. Instead, she had bought him a tankard of proper Fereldan ale - _you should not drink that pigswill_ \- and offered him a travelling companion for a while.   
  
“I have heard you keep your distance to the Order these days, Commander,” Stroud had said, his voice not even the slightest bit neutral. There’s a sternness in him, a strictness that seems to demand discipline from everyone else, regardless of rank or purpose. A long life of service, the things it can do to you.   
  
“Perhaps,” Elissa had answered. “I work better in small groups.”  
  
He had studied her for a long while before nodding. “Fair enough.”  
  
He hadn’t known any details of what happened during the battle of Adamant; she had not held any clues to mysteries he had been working on solving. They had welcomed each other, nonetheless.   
  
“You grew up near Redcliffe?” Stroud looks at her now, over his mug of ale and with a curious expression on his face. Not the talkative sort, her companion, which is one of many things she appreciates about him - they are efficient, discrete people on a mission and there’s no need to make it anything other than that - but there’s something to be said about smalltalk, as well. There are times when Elissa can almost _taste_ the solitude they share, a stark and bitter bite in her mouth, a twists to her lungs. No one is created for that kind of isolation, her mother used to say back when she feared Elissa would end up a _tragic old spinster._   
  
“Highever,” she says, wondering briefly if it’s all the same to him. He’s shown no signs of being ignorant of Thedas before, but that part of her subconscious that’s still a rebellious descendant of a man who fought to free her country from Orlais tells her most Orlesians, regardless of their context, are arrogant. _Even Loghain is over that by now._ Something in her spins at the thought of him; something dark shuffles around far beneath duty and composure, in the well of emotions she’s been covering up for the last few years.   
  
“Ah, of course.” Stroud nods, the ghost of a smile visible. “I do know that about you.”  
  
“A lot of people do.”   
  
“I can imagine.”  
  
Thus far he’s not posed the questions Elissa has spent a decade avoiding - _how could you defeat an Archdemon and live? What happened in Denerim?_ They’re coming, she knows it, had known it even before Loghain wrote to tell her about Morrigan’s presence among the Inquisition’s forces.   
  
Judging by recent developments, however, it’s shaping up to become the kind of world where one Archdemon and one shady ritual in Denerim are reduced to - at most- noteworthy details in the big picture. The sky has been torn and mended again, the Qunari have attacked outside of Tevinter and a dwarf - not even formally a soldier, not even formally _anything_ \- has been dubbed Herald of Andraste though most of her meddling actions and interferences have led to further turmoil across several borders. Beside those events the Fifth Blight fades.   
  
Around them, night falls as Stroud finishes his meal and gets to his feet. “I will try and get some sleep. Don’t hesitate to wake me up if I’m needed.”  
  
“Sleep well.” Elissa watches him disappear into their shared tent before she reaches inside her overcoat and then inside her leather armour - she prefers to look like a vagabond rather than an armed warrior, at least in Ferelden - to check if the letter is still there. It is. Rough textures against her fingertips, slightly worn parchment and a broken seal, soft but firm when she rubs her thumb over it.   
  
She no longer has to actually read it to know what it says; she reads it all the same, every day for almost a year, reads it like a summoning spell or a prayer, refusing to let these remain the last words.   
  
_E,_ _  
_ _Close to the border now. Messages in the usual places. There are many things I’d like to talk to you about but I dare not write them down. Adamant was a narrow escape but the Order should be safe from that threat. Inq. seem like reliable allies. Don’t go back into hiding, seek aid. Strength in numbers._ _  
_ _Maker watch over you._ _  
_ __L  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
Every time Thom leaves Val Royeaux he hopes it’s for good.    
  
Never  _ is _ , but he supposes a man can bloody dream. Once upon a time the colourful, golden city was his dream, one rooted deep inside him, like a breath or a passing thought. But even at the height of his military days, this place would piss on him, offer nothing but scorn and disdain in return for his pathetic admiration, as though Val Royeaux is a noblewoman and Thom’s a fucking stable boy, pining away. It affects something fundamental in you, being that undesired.      
  
That part of his life may be over, long gone by now, but he can still  _ feel  _ it.   
  
Today, in the bright sunlight by the docks, surrounded by people he has worked with long enough and close enough to consider friends, Thom certainly feels it.   
  
Today, in the bright sunlight by the dock, when they speak of trivialities so loudly that it drowns out everything they do not mention. (Eluvians, mages, bloody sodding  _ gods _ .) Not here, not now.  _ Haven _ , the Inquisitor had said curtly to everyone who wanted answers the other night. That or _ I don’t know _ .    
  
She isn’t talking much. Thom finds that he talks for the both of them, fretting about like a worried wife, though this is the last thing he is. He’d hoped some time apart would somehow smooth over a couple of things between them and perhaps it did, though the Exalted Council hadn’t precisely  _ helped _ . Instead Malika has been perpetually furious ever since they arrived and then came the aftermath of the Qunari invasion and he’d much rather avoid thinking about  _ that _ .    
  
She's sitting on a bench near the boat, head bowed. Reading something, by the look of it, but he knows her well enough to know it might just as well be a pose, a silent _  leave me the fuck alone _ .   
  
“Safe travels then, Hero,” Varric says, hoisting a bag over his shoulder. He, too, is throwing glances at the Inquisitor - Thom’s going to stop thinking of her that way soon, but for now it stays, serving as a reminder of better days, better journeys.    
  
“You’re not coming?”   
  
The dwarf shakes his head. “I figure Kirkwall could use its Viscount. Every now and then. And I think Aveline misses me.”   
  
“Right.” Thom lifts the last box of what feels like giant stones and carries it to the ship. When he returns, Varric is leaving.    
  
“Open invitation to the city of chains,” he says. “Bring the Inquisitor. She could use a night or two at the Hanged Man.”   
  
That is probably true, though they both know the most likely scenario for Thom and the Inquisitor’s near future is another war room somewhere, plotting another course, fighting another battle. Exhaustion nearly floors him at the thought and he sits down beside Malika on the bench, wanting to say a great many things but not right now.    
  
Right now, he thinks as she turns her head to look at him, he just wants to get them out of Val Royeaux.     
  



	3. The wrath of Haven

  
_“This isn’t about a greater message. We have an enemy and we have to stand together.”_   
The Inquisitor   
  
\---  
  
  
  
  
Haven had felt like a punishment.   
  
Her reason for being there in the first place had been so utterly tied up in the mess of it all and her weariness, her _exhaustion_ had coloured everything that happened before the disaster in shades of grey. Before the trappings of her family sent her spying at the Conclave she had almost escaped. Narrowly, but still. Escape is escape and anything will do; she’s never been foolish enough to imagine that she would get the flavour of her own choosing.   
  
Then Haven blew up and here she is now, years later and there’s no getting _out_ . She no longer even knows if this is what she wants. The Inquisition, for all its downsides, had given her purpose and she had found, breathlessly, that she had been longing for it in all its fractured glory.   
  
“I had forgotten how destroyed it was,” Thom says beside her and Malika turns her head towards him, wondering if he feels the same about being here again. Captain Thom Rainier had not been a man who easily rooted himself in the lands he travelled through, they’ve talked about that before, have discussed every tedious detail of their pasts, compared notes. He had claimed it was different with her, that they were both _different_ , but she’s not allowing sentimentality to cloud her head and the shadows of the past seem so strong here, their whispers like thick fog.   
  
“I had forgotten how long the journey is.” She rolls her shoulders, still uncomfortable in her own body, with the recent _limits_ of it. All her life her strength has been power and now she’s _nothing_ . _We’ll train you_ , Thom promises in her memory, feverish and urgent words in her ear as she struggles not to cry. _Fix it_ but they can’t grow her a sodding hand and words mean so very little in the face of that.     
  
“I hope neither of you have forgotten the task we have ahead.” Cassandra jumps out of the carriage in one swift move, all of her limbs still attached to her body, and Malika can’t refrain from grimacing slightly.   
  
Haven had felt like a punishment because she couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t help with any of it and now they’re back and it keeps crumbling down over and over and over again.   


* * *

  
  
  
  
In the beginning it’s simple.   
  
Frozen lakes and fresh snow and that wondrous, beckoning, _terrifying_ rift above their heads like a slice of magic that seeps into everything they do. Impossible missions make for plenty of hands-on, practical assignments and Thom hides in them, buries his secrets in mundane tasks and his self-hatred in between the gaps in each fight, every battle they survive. He sharpens his blade, reinforces his shield and survives, endlessly. He doesn’t wish to die; he hopes he will fall.   
  
The Inquisitor is the only one, he thinks at times, who sees that particular twist in his mind.   
  
“No questions,” she had promised him once in Skyhold with her hands halfway inside his trousers. “Never.”   
  
It’s a promise unkept and it still sort of lingers as they return once more.   
  
Mal who turns her head upwards, quiet and composed, expecting the sky to burst. And Thom, wondering how in Andraste’s name he’s supposed to help fight a god-mage’s grandiose plots and plans when it does.   
  
Again. 

* * *

  
  
  
  
“What about the Grey Wardens?” Cassandra asks, arms folded across her chest as she observes the small group of people gathered in the restored chantry. It’s as war-torn as the village itself but serves, all the same, as a soothing reminder of rebirth and hope. They could all use that right now. _Especially with our new Divine. No, do not go there. Leliana will settle into the responsibilities._   
  
“There seems to be no immediate news.” Cullen flips through a pile of reports, searching. “Though Ser Ruth wrote to our agent in Redcliffe recently.”   
  
Josephine nods.”She expressed deep concerns about Tevinter.”   
  
“Did she ask for reinforcements?”   
  
“Not directly. It’s not _clear_ .” Cullen looks at the paper again, silent for a while. “Besides, I feel less than certain that we have anything to offer her as it is.”   
  
The Commander does his best to maintain his composure in these matters but the recent uncertainty of their military presence and resources does take its toll on him, she can tell. On them all, surely, but Cullen in particular seeks comfort in numbers. Large numbers of soldiers to scout and secure, conquer and fortify. _Very Fereldan,_ Leliana used to say. _They always fear their borders will be breached._ Cassandra can appreciate the sentiment, add it to the list of things she considers likeable about the former templar. Vigilant and devoted. A Commander is not properly tempered until he faces impossible odds, she had told him when the Inquisition first fought their battle in Haven and the skies were thick with blood and death. In the carriage here, leaving Val Royeaux and its sharp golden outline behind, he had looked _abandoned_ in a way that had tugged at her heart. _You and your strays, Seeker._   
  
“If the Wardens are up to something we should look into it.” Rainier clears his throat, the deep voice rumbles through the chamber. Cassandra always finds it odd how such a large man can slip soundlessly into the shadows of any room and appear invisible until he desires otherwise. But she supposes he has had many years to practice. “I’ve no desire to witness another Adamant.”   
  
Orlais certainly had illustrated how the diplomatic situation can offer, at best, a fragile truce and, at worst, a chaos of bickering and withdrawn support. But the Order is not created to be anyone’s allies - far from it, in fact. Sometimes it seems Cassandra is one of the few who truly remember that. With Corypheus defeated it can rightly be said that the Inquisition is little more than a _glorified mercenary band_ \- though part of her would have liked to tell the Fereldan lord a few harsh truths when she learned what he had called them at the Council - and surely that goes for the Grey Wardens as well.   
  
“I’m more worried about Tevinter,” the Inq- _Cadash_ , states. She, too, can stay quiet for long stretches of time during debriefings and plannings, sit silent and dour for endless travels only to burst out into long rants or sermons if the mood strikes her. It had taken some time getting used to it, to her, but Cassandra would like to think that she has. They might not be bosom friends but they can cooperate. “And the reported darkspawn activity there.”   
  
“Where the darkspawn are, we’ll find Wardens as well.” Thom’s gaze lingers on her face for entirely too long and Cassandra averts hers. Whatever private matters that pass between them at present are none of her concern and the less she knows, the better. Too much insight makes not interfering that much more difficult. Cadash has been unquestionably clear about her opinion of _sodding gossip and nagging_ .   
  
“The Venatori are too strong for us to handle alone,” Josephine points out. “All information our agents have secured suggest they are moving en masse . And there is the likely scenario of further Qunari attacks, as well.   
  
“Solas is our concern,” Cadash says, voice low and harsh. “Diplomacy didn’t end the inane civil wars before and it won’t end this.”   
  
Cullen sighs, barely audibly but Cassandra stands close enough to hear it. “While I agree, we can’t end anything until we have secured allies. Preferably those with soldiers.”   
  
Afterwards, outside, he’s pacing the path outside the inner gates, resembling a guard who knows nothing of rest or a battle-heavy general the night before another war. It’s almost autumn now, the leaves around them shifting in colours, a whole display of every subtle nuance of red, yellow and brown reflected in the light from the setting sun. A most poetic season, capable of turning the head of hardened warriors and blushing youths alike.   
  
Noticing her arrival, Cullen stops. She stands silently beside him for a little while before they speak.

  
“You would have preferred to serve the Divine, would you not?”   
  
There’s a frown on his face, a passing shade of surprise at her question as though he hasn’t thought of this a hundred times himself. She _knows_ he has. ”It would have made us rather more… substantial. Yes. Yes, I suppose I would have preferred that, had things been different.”   
  
“As would I.”   
  
“You will still participate in the Exalted Council, yes?”   
  
She nods, catching his gaze as a few merchants come to a halt several feet away, watching them intently. Rumour travels fast, eyes are everywhere and in that sense, she knows, their efforts against Solas are already failing. There is no element of surprise in anything they do now, no strategy besides their former Inquisitor’s stubborn determination to end the chaos and secure the peace. While she is a forceful woman, with or without her Mark, Cassandra is the first to admit that they will require more. Much more. And yet none of it should be _seen_ , every trace they leave of their alliances will leave them vulnerable to the Dread Wolf. In the eyes of Thedas, they must be forgotten.   
  
“Josephine is leaving in a fortnight,” Cullen adds after a while, likely thinking about the same thing. The organisation they both once worked day and night to build must be scaled down, strippped of its armour and weapons until it can move swiftly through the narrow paths in the darkness. With their spymaster on the Sunburst Throne, their ambassador gone and their soldiers retreating to whatever lives they had before the swore themselves to the Inquisition, they can hopefully gain some obscurity and anonymity back as the South leave the grim battles and Fade rifts behind.   
  
This is peace.   
  
That is what they must all pretend.      
  
 

* * *

  
  
  
  
In the beginning it’s simple.   
  
Except it’s _not_ but they’re still detached enough for it not to matter, are merely bodies and assorted anecdotes readily shared in a tavern over a mug or three of fresh ale. Malika chooses her past, soothes over the ugly bits with a grin and the swagger of her hips and Thom, she realises afterwards, flat-out lies. He’s judged for it, she isn’t.   
  
It hadn’t been difficult to spare him once the decision was in her hands. He had been there in front of her, chains around his wrists and more love in between his words than she had the need - or stomach - for.   
  
_There is no us_ , she had told him and it had felt like the stone of Skyhold came down around them, caving them in.   
  
Neither of them have honoured that statement very much but it still stands as they return in their own footsteps, as though hiking back to long-dead roots or origins so dusty nobody remembers them anymore.   
  
“You’re a free man, Thom Rainier.” Malika observes him from a distance, watches him go through his pack for the second time today. He’s keeping himself obsessively busy, even now. _You’re one to talk, eh?_ Chasing the ancient elven god through Thedas would probably qualify as a fairly large undertaking, too. “I’m not asking you to be here.”  
  
There’s a shade of something dark - frustration, jealousy, possibly grief - crossing his features. “Noted.”  
  
“No, not like _that_.” She sighs and scratches the arm that still tingles, _furiously_. It shows no sign of ceasing, her body not a single step closer to accepting its fate. “I mean - you can go. Wherever you want. Look for more of your men. Take jobs. I don’t - I can’t-”  
  
“ _Malika_ ,” he interrupts and his tone is dark, too, low and soft and tender. It makes her want to close her eyes.   
  
“You don’t _have_ to be here,” she tries again, reshaping her voice. There’s something chafing there, at the back of her mind, the grey little corners where truth goes to hide, and she reaches for it at times like these. _You are who you choose to follow_. She has never wanted followers. “The Inquisition is gone.”  
  
“I’ve noticed that, too.”   
  
“I’m going to stay here a little while.” Malika looks out over the landscape that’s thawed since their first time here, a layer of hardness irreplaceably gone. War makes a nation vulnerable for generations, like a disease that runs in a family, weakening its bloodline. A rotten curse. “Talk to the others. Make a plan. Then I’m going to do whatever I can to stop Solas.”  
  
Thom looks at her like she’s telling him things he hasn’t heard a hundred times before, his face still, his gaze attentive.   
  
“Sounds good to me,” he says eventually. “I’ll go where you go.”  
  
“Can’t be that easy.”  
  
Nothing between them has been; every move they have ever made together has felt like the sort of fate neither of them believe in.   
  
“It is what is is.” His gaze is a sharp sword, pointing at spots deep, deep down where she’s raw nerve and boiling blood. “You’ll need good fighters wherever you end up.”  
  
“So if I say we storm Tevinter, you’ll come along?” The mere thought makes her want to run away screaming but she wants to throw the idea out there, test it against his resolve.   
  
Thom shrugs. “Why not? I’d go with you to blasted Orzammar if you wanted.”  
  
There are a handful of details all humans seem to know about dwarves, a few facts and phrases gathered in their minds. _Lyrium_ , they’ll say. _Fine dwarven crafts_ , they’ll say. _Oh, a dwarf - are you from Orzammar?_ _I served with a dwarf once, maybe you know her?_ Thom usually knows better, usually remembers that she’s a sun-touched lost cause, and when he doesn’t, she feels free to mock him for it. _  
_  
” _Orzammar_? What would we do in Orzammar? We’d never survive down there.” She chuckles, still pushing away the sentiments that follow his words, his _oaths,_ trying instead to conjure up hilarious images of the two of them trodding along the streets of the city that would never accept her.”I have lost all stone sense if I ever had some and you’d fall off a bridge and get your head smashed.”   
  
He smiles, too, but there’s a heaviness in his gaze that goes beyond words. “Just an example.”   
  
Around them it grows darker but some daylight still remains and she wants to put it to good use. Cullen has instructed her a little, Sera had devoted several evenings in Orlais to crude-mouthed tutoring in the art of archery - _prissy twats will never see it coming from down there, blah blah arrow in the arse_ \- and Malika has practiced on her own but it’s always easier with a partner. There are days when she longs for her sword as much as she misses her hand, days when she thinks it was actually a limb, not a weapon, that it had been forged into her bones and then torn off. Now she fights with a ghost always present in her body and the vital task is to make it disappear, force it back into the shadows.  
  
“Follow me to the training grounds then.”   
  
Thom nods, solemnly as though he’s in a chantry or bowing to kings and queens in that wholehearted fashion that Malika has only ever seen humans do. Lowering themselves in submission.   
  
“Of course, my lady.”


	4. Audiences

  
They part ways in a small village just outside Haven.   
  
It’s only temporarily, Elissa knows and it feels reassuring. She has enjoyed the camaraderie and skill of her recent travel companion and Stroud, it seems, has found similar benefits in their situation. Both of them are used to solitude but these are dark days and there is an undeniable force in unity, in holding the lines together.   
  
“We will meet you here as soon as we can,” she promises.  
  
She says _we_ because she refuses to accept the idea that her plea for assistance will be turned down. _Always a teyrna in these matters_ , Loghain comments in her head, a streak of amusement in his deep voice, like an echo.   
  
She says _we_ because it is the only possibility.   
  
Stroud nods; there’s a trace left of the original disapproval he had displayed when presented with her idea though she suspects that if given the chance, he’d still lecture her about how vital it is that the Grey Wardens are and remain an independent organisation, serving no one and having no political purpose. He has personal reasons for it that goes beyond the typical credo of their Order and she has carried Ferelden through a Blight with the help of allies in every city, assisting hands around every corner. Kingmaker and Warden-Commander, she has made certain a Warden sits on the throne though the king’s tainted blood had been more unlucky circumstance than part of some overarching scheme of hers. To this day, Elissa cannot say she did the right thing back in Denerim all those years ago. Ferelden is better off, perhaps, but it should never have been _her_ decision in the first place, all that power should not have been hers to wield. _You see_ , Stroud says pointedly in her memory. _This is my point exactly._   
  
They had spent two days’ worth of travel discussing it at length - arguing about it even, and Elissa cannot claim to have won the debate even if it’s her plan they now heed to.   
  
He’ll remain in the village, will investigate a few rumours of unusual sightings of darkspawn near the coast - rare to hear about these day, which makes them even more concerned and willing to pay attention to the matter though it’s also entirely possible that the sightings have been mistakes. Once, Elissa recalls, Loghain and her searched an entire forest looking for an ogre - which, in the end, had turned out to be a stray druffalo from a farm nearby. War does something to your nerves, Loghain used to claim. Makes you more sensitive to the world or not nearly sensitive enough so for a long time after the fighting has ceased, possibly forever, you will find yourself changed to impressions, sights, sounds.     
  
But people here in Ferelden are tough, Elissa had told Stroud the other night as they discussed the darkspawn. And they can certainly tell a hurlock from a wolf.   
  
“Maker watch over you,” Stroud says quietly now, as she folds her last pair of socks and stuffs them in with the rest of her clothes, and it might seem overly dramatic for such a short time apart but they both know it’s not. Creatures of war see goodbyes at every turn.   
  
Elissa nods back, wrapping her cloak tighter as she throws her pack over her shoulder. “And you.”  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
The day the Hero of Ferelden arrives in Haven is a day with almost unusual autumn weather, a heat that seems oddly misplaced and an air around that that seems to long for a proper thunderstorm. **  
**

Hooded and hunched, the Hero slips between the gossip and the shadows and then, just like that, she's seated in the middle of a bright room where the sun has not yet reached this forenoon. Mal sits opposite her and Thom watches in the outskirts, arms folded across his chest. A slow-spinning thread of unrest in him at the notion that a woman of her renown, of her capacity, is seeking their assistance. It can’t bloody well be good, now can it? 

Lady Elissa Cousland. A name somewhere at the back of his mind that seems unfitting for the woman now that he's met her. Spread out and slumped back in her chair, she is no Lady, not even a Fereldan one. She's an embodiment of battle, a weapon forged and reforged so many times he wonders if she can still remember what she used to be like, before. There was a massacre in Highever, he recalls. A brief, bloody war and then a lifetime of it.

“What can I do for you, Commander?” Mal takes a sip of her goblet of the chilled white wine that she had asked for the moment she realised the identity of her unexpected visitor. He’s not certain why, perhaps she wishes to impress. 

“I'm looking for someone.”

“Really?” A sharp edge appears in Mal's tone suddenly, like a chill in the room. “I hope you are aware that these are my people and if you want to conscript them, you will have to face me first.”

The Hero sits up slightly and gives a harsh laughter. “Don't be a fool, it doesn't suit you. I'm not here for more Wardens. I'm looking for Loghain.”

“Loghain?” Malika takes another sip of wine. The other woman hasn't touched hers yet. “ _ Warden _ Loghain?”

“Yes.”

“He's not here.”

Thom had thought, a long time ago now by a fire in the desert, that there had been something in the old warden's voice when he had spoken briefly of the Hero of Ferelden. _ Long gone, they say. Leave her be.  _ Something not quite traceable but  _ there _ , deep-rooted and quietly burning. He hears the echoes of it in her voice, too, closed-off and composed but not managing to entirely mask the emotion beneath.

She leans forward now, elbows on her knees. The light in the room falls in squares across her closely cropped dark hair, her strong features and broad shoulders. There's a hard beauty to it, to her. A commanding sort of charisma even here where the exhaustion is more visible than she seems to realise, where every march she's walked, every battle she's fought is spelled out all over her skin. It must be a long time now since she left her home for a life of this. He feels his own weariness like a heavy presence in his body recently, a reminder of how long ago he set out to leave Markham, to be someone, to prove them all wrong or whatever youthful idiocy he had filled his head with. It’s been a long time, for all of them. 

“I know. But you and your Inquisition will help me find him.”   
  
“How?”   
  
“I propose that we work together.” The Hero has a way of speaking that makes her demands come off as suggestions, at least to Thom, but Mal appears much less swayed. She normally  _ is _ ; she is in possession of a keen sense of understanding all those unspoken demands of everyday conversations, a reliable little whistle going off every time she thinks someone is going to ask something of her that she doesn’t want to do. It had given her plenty of grief as the Inquisitor. It might serve them well now, in the aftermath.    
  
“ _ How _ ?” she repeats.    
  
“The Grey Warden fortress in Weisshaupt has been quiet for a very long time now,” the Hero says, her expression betraying no irritation or desperation though Thom can easily imagine she must feel both of these things very vividly. He would, in her position. “That is not a good sign. Or a good thing, for either of us.”   
  
“Meaning?”   
  
“Meaning that it appears something is still disturbing the ranks. Whether or not that is an external or an internal threat, I cannot say but I need to investigate it further.”   
  
“Corrupt Wardens aren’t my problems.” Mal suddenly sounds more weary than arrogant.    
  
“They will be your problem at some point, I can assure you. The state Thedas is currently in, there simply is no room for unstable elements capable of doing great damage.”    
  
“You mean Adamant.”   
  
“I mean Adamant.”   
  
They sit quietly for a while, neither of them touching their drinks or making any sign that they are about to give in. Then Mal exhales deeply, rubbing her forehead with her palm - a gesture that Thom has learned the meaning of over the years - and sinks back in her seat. It’s a subtle thing though certainly not a small feat; it’s a compromise made by a woman who does not know how to compromise, he thinks and feels the corners of his mouth tug upwards. The Hero of Ferelden appears to have the intimidating effect on more people than just him.    
  
“I expect help in return then.”   
  
The Hero nods. “Naturally. I gather there are still issues with the veil?”

“That’s certainly true,” Mal retorts after a brief pause. “But we can speak more of that later.”   
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


 

Later, when the sun has set and Mal has raged about the demands twice – once in her chambers, throwing a tome of Warden history on the floor, the second time in the stables;  _ she has some nerve, storming in here asking for favours after everything we've done for the sodding bloody Wardens _ – Thom watches the Hero leave the chantry. He knows without asking that she's the praying sort, can see at the bottom of her gaze that it remains one of those things that make her human through everything. Many soldiers kneeling by the statues along the road, he remembers it well. Had always wished he were among them.

“Leaving already, my lady?”

“Just catching some fresh air.” She stops, turns around and lets her gaze travel over his face. “You're the one pretending to be Blackwall.”

He sighs. “I...was. I did. Yes.”

“I met him once.” A fraction of a smile on her lips now, an unreadable expression. “Shortly after the Blight.”   
  
“So did I.”    
  
“Indeed.” She looks at him for a beat, eyes wandering over his face. He wonders what she sees there. Wonders a bit what she sees when she looks at the former Inquisition, in general. Awe or indifference, surprise or irritation? “And call me Elissa. Or Warden, I suppose. I haven’t been a lady in many years now.”   
  
“Of course,” Thom nods, wondering when titles and their use will ever come naturally to him. Likely never, you need to be born into it to breathe it like Cassandra or lady Josephine. “Elissa it is.”   
  
“Good.”    
  
“I never intended to cause harm to the Wardens,” he says because it feels like something he ought to say. Something he  _ wants  _ to say.     
  
Elissa lets out a deep breath, one hand running over her head, as though she’s raking it through hair that’s no longer there. Perhaps she’s changed her appearance as a disguise recently.    
  
“The Orlesian Wardens did a good job there,” she mutters. “Nobody even remembers your little deception.”   
  
“Right.” Thom looks away, digging his heel into the soil beneath them. It’s vain but she makes him feel unimportant, the whole aftermath of his disgusting lie has made him feel unimportant.  _ You  _ are  _ unimportant, you idiot.  _ He clears his throat.    
  
“You were there, were you not?”    
  
“At Adamant?” He looks up again; the depths of her eyes have a different tone now, a darker sort of desperation in them. It lands in him with a heavy, hollow sound. “I was, yes.”   
  
The night is falling around them, drawing people closer to each other as they venture inside their homes. Even if this land now knows peace again, Thom figures it will take a long time for that to settle, a long time until the constant fear has left their bodies.    
  
“I’d like to talk to you about it, Rainier.”   
  
He’s fascinated by her face when she looks at him now. The gap in her composure, Thom watches it with a sense of quiet bewilderment. It’s the same with all great leaders and general, their dedication when it comes to keeping up their appearances so massive and then, it usually turns out that what their subjects and soldiers really want is someone to share a drink with at the end of a successful battle. Someone who at least pretends to be one of them, to have preserved the people they used to be.    
  
“The tavern’s open,” he says, nodding towards the modest little shack.    
  
She gives a curt smile, one coming from a woman who is no longer used to smiles, he gathers. Perhaps it’s this more than anything else that makes it difficult for him to see her as a noblewoman.  _ You are not used to women being people _ , Mal snaps in his memory. _ You and your sodding human ladies in their fancy dresses.  _ He can’t claim she’s wrong, though it’s not something he wants to think about at present. Not with this tiny chance of making it right with the Wardens, of settling a debt he has found no means to repay before.    
  
“Thank you,” the Warden in front of him says.    
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Even though it’s most likely past the time when Haven’s little tavern typically closes for the night the barmaid keeps the tankards coming and Elissa notices a couple of new guests slipping in through the door just as she wonders if they must leave.    
  
She finds Thom Rainier more pleasant than she would have thought, far less irritating that she had made him out to be in her head as she thought about the days that were ahead of them, back when she and Stroud travelled here. He’s humble, she thinks. Like Stroud he is humble and unlike Stroud, not very easy to offend. It makes the topic of their conversation easier to get through. Even if his past is repulsive she’s been part of their Order for so long now most horror stories merely brush past her, like a gust of wind.   
  
“Some of the warriors stood against the blood magic,” he clarifies again, his voice mild and low around the words as though he’s trying to soften the blow for her. “Some fell immediately, of course. But they all fought well. All things considered. And once the thrall had been broken they were ready to fight for our cause. Honorable men and women.”  
  
Elissa sighs. They had learned about the Orlesian wardens together, Loghain and her. News and rumours had seeped into their near-isolation, their solitude breached gradually, a thunderous sound increasing until it was impossible to ignore even for someone like her who had sworn to steer clear of her brothers and sisters until she could return with news about their Calling. And then Loghain had admitted to her that he, too, felt that his end was approaching and no preparations in all of Thedas could have been enough for that blow not to shake her up completely. _We will never have enough time_ , you and I, she had told him years ago. There had been grief behind the words even then, but that grief had been hollow in comparison to the hot, raw emotion that she felt when he told her about his Calling. Nothing could have prepared her for that. Nothing could have come even close.   
  
“It’s not their honour I’m worried about,” she says.   
  
“Everyone can fall to blood magic.”  
  
“I am aware.” The ale has gone luke-warm in her tankard but Elissa downs the last of it anyway. “The Magister, what became of him?”  
  
Rainier takes a mouthful of his own ale before answering. “Prisoner at Skyhold. Moved him after Corypheus was defeated. Cassandra would know more.”   
  
“I’ll seek her out tomorrow then.” The Seeker would have been Elissa’s first choice if information was all she wanted from the group of fighters formerly known as the Inquisition. Harsh facts and well-balanced accounts of the events of the last few years. But since she is here for different reasons she had decided that she would need to try a few different paths.    
  
“Did the Wardens join Corypheus for the remaining battles as well?”  
  
She wonders how much the Inquisition ever learned about the Warden prison from which their main enemy had been released. The Warden prison that almost no Wardens know about, that _she_ only knows about because Loghain had stumbled across trails of it and his investigations had led him to Marian Hawke in Kirkwall.   
  
Rainier nods. “Fought Wardens to the end. Sorry bunch of bastards.”  
  
“He must have feared the Order to target them to that extent.” She looks at a couple of elves sharing a tankard of _the tavern’s best brew_ at the table nearby.   
  
“Perhaps he just thought them easy prey.”  
  
“Perhaps.” There’s something deeply unsatisfying in that thought, a dark edge in it that twists like a dagger. Of all the illusions she’s shed over the years she has held the illusion of the powerful Grey Wardens close to her heart for the past decade, its roots growing deep and far inside her. The ranks may be made up of reluctant criminals and conscripted soldiers like the Elissa Cousland they once dragged out of Highever, but at least there’s power in them, power and resistance and _resolve_.    
  
She hates being proven wrong. _  
_  
Once they’ve finished their last ale, Rainier walks with her back to the village where they both reside. She has learned today that he’s close with Cadash, likely lovers. So many years travelling with others and she’s come to be remarkably talented at interpreting various signs, read the spaces between people and everything she’s seen today suggests an intimate relationships - with obstacles, given that they do not sleep in the same building. She wonders if the dwarf had not known about Rainier’s deception, wonders what she would do in the same situation. It’s a curious thought. With Loghain everything had been on the table from the start, both of them scrambling up from the lowest point in their lives, every disadvantage and flaw displayed mercilessly. _Ugly_ , she had thought back then but in retrospect she can find beauty in it, in the nakedness and lack of pretences. She thinks they love each other better for it.   
  
__Maker’s breath, I miss you.   
  
“Thank you,” she tells the man by her side once more tonight, shoving her emotions aside. “I appreciate the chat.”  
  
“Not a problem,” Rainier says. “Whatever you need.”

Back in the small house she borrows, Elissa slips into a thick wool nightdress and washes her face; the single room is warm from the fireplace and she’s warm from the ale. All in all it has the makings of a decent night’s sleep, she decides.    
  
All tucked up in her bed, she unfolds the last message sent to her by deft hands and quiet messengers and left in the tavern in Redcliffe where she still knows people who owe her enough favors to assist with her communications.   
  
_ Reached A. There is little more than chaos to be found here. I would tell you not to come but there would be no point so I will urge you to be careful instead. Travel in groups.  _ _   
_ _ L  _

  
  
  



	5. Second sin

  
Isabela snores rather terribly.   
  
It is a conversation Bethany has never properly _had_ with her but occasionally tried to hint at by suggesting a plethora of herbal solutions, spells and practical things such as not drinking herself to sleep or insisting on sleeping on her back, daggers on each side of her body. _Ready for anything, sweetness._ The daggers, of course, have nothing to do with the snoring but Bethany will never feel entirely comfortable in a tent full of sharp objects. _Not just sharp,_ Isabela scolds in her head. _My blades could fell an ogre_.   
  
Either way, the snoring gets inside Bethany’s skull, pokes at her dreams and wakes her up. Every morning when the sleep is thin and her hold of the Fade is lost, she wakes up to her companion’s noises.   
  
In the grey morning light outside their tent, the Anderfels wakes up along with her; the mountains that separate them from the Warden fortress rise tall and impossible behind the clouds and from the nearby forest, she can hear wild animals scurry about.   
  
Rubbing the remains of sleep from her eyes, she sinks down by the charcoaled wood from last night’s fire. Growing up she had been on the run more often than not and there are countless of mornings just like this one floating around in her memory. _Countless_ , but with Marian and Carver and mother sitting in a circle by the flames, breaking their fast together in the morning. Father had never been a morning person and they would hear him as they had their breakfast, coming to his senses at his own pace while the rest of them prepared for departure. It was for his sake they kept running at first, then for hers, too; the weight of that still lingers, resting in the deepest, darkest corners of her heart.   
  
She finds bread among their supplies, bread and a slice of cheese and half an apple. It’s a good thing she has never been a big eater in the mornings, not even now, as a Warden.   
  
When she pours water into the pot they carry with them in order to make tea, she hears a sudden rustle in the bushes behind the tent and snaps out of her task, rising to her feet within a second. Her right hand is curled around her staff while the left one lights a magelight. Everything in her is always ready, every nerve and bone prepared for battle or flight. She wonders if it’s ever been anything else. .   
  
“Hello?” she calls.   
  
There’s no answer at first, then the bushes rustle again and someone coughs - she’s no healer but the sound of it is rather ominous, the cough a deep, _thick_ sort -  and staggers out of the vegetation, falling to his knees on the path before her. A man. Bethany remains where she is, letting the light float closer to him.   
  
He’s armed and armoured but heavily injured, she can tell by the way he presses one arm to his side while kneeling, a low sound of pain emerging as he tries but fails to stand up again.   
  
“Hello?” She tries again, this time moving closer. Her magic is focused now, ready at her fingertips, and the intruder seems too worn out to be able to do much damage. Unless it’s all a show, but there’s no way of knowing unless she approaches.   
  
When she’s so close she can touch him with her staff, the man turns his face towards her and Bethany looks at someone who must be Loghain Mac Tir, the man who commanded her brother and sister at Ostagar and then - as the Hawkes had to run out of Ferelden, fleeing from his army as much as anything else - ended up being conscripted into the Grey Wardens. They have met a couple of times over the past few years and she has come to understand that her sister considers him a friend. Friends in odd places, to say the least. But then again it’s always the odd places with her.   
  
“You look like someone,” he says, before she’s had time to ask if it’s really him.   
  
And then he falls down on the grass, unconscious.   
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
He wakes up gradually, one slow blink at the time, slipping back into the Fade a couple of times before that pull that drags you awake finally manages to push the last traces of sleep away.   
  
He wakes up gradually and in pain and tries to speak, but ends up coughing instead.   
  
“Bethy!” A woman’s voice, deep and dark and near. Glancing to his side, Loghain can spot her. She sits cross-legged on the ground, carving something on a piece of leather by the look of things but he wouldn’t trust his own eyesight much at present. It’s bleary, blurry, and he groans as he attempts to lift his head to see where he is and what sort of people that surrounds him. “Bethy, he’s waking up.”  
  
“Don’t call me Bethy.” Another woman and suddenly he almost cries out, thinking himself trapped in the Fade again with Adamant burning behind them and the Inquisitor fighting alongside them.   
  
“Hawke,” he manages but last time he saw her she was rushing towards one of the largest monsters Loghain has ever seen in his life, her sword like a small defiant twig in comparison to its tentacles and jaws.   
  
The woman comes closer, stands mere inches away from him now and her hands have a faint glow. A mage. The missing pieces begin to snap back into place in his memory. Hawke’s sister, the Warden. He inhales, staring into her face. It’s a friendly face though the years have not been gentle since she joined, has not been rewarding to friendliness.   
  
“It’s Bethany,” she says. “Marian’s sister. We’ve met once. You’re Loghain, are you not?”  
  
“Yes.” he tries to nod but that proves too painful, still. When she notices it, she makes a little grimace.   
  
“You were rather injured,” she says. “I’ve mended the wounds enough for them to heal on their own in a couple of days but it will likely hurt a lot.”  
  
“I see.” He clears his throat. “Thank you, all the same.”  
  
“Where had you been?” the other woman - who is vaguely familiar though not enough for him to connect her to anything specific, a face floating freely somewhere in the depths of his memory. “Where did you get hurt?”  
  
Loghain inhales, hesitates.   
  
Trust is not cheap in times like these and he’s too exhausted to calculate the cost in his head, too suspicious of everyone to be a good judge of character and too bloody confused to have a grasp of the situation in the first place.   
  
“It’s a long story, one for another day,” he says, as some sort of half-hearted compromise that allows nothing to slip out.   
  
He can tell the women aren’t satisfied with it, can see the doubt like scars in the mage’s face and the other one - who leans closer, as well, inspecting him with a little frown on her face.   
  
“Rough fight,” she says then, her gaze following what he assumes is an injury on the left side of his face. “That’s the work of a poisoned dagger. Must have hurt.”  
  
“You’re a healer, too?”  
  
She laughs. “Not a chance, sweet thing.”  
  
“Maker, don’t call everyone that,” Bethany says, glaring at the other woman. “This is Isabela. My sister’s wife. Even if neither of them would ever admit to it.”  
  
“Ah.” He attempts a nod again, more successfully this time. “Of course.”   
  
There’s a rest settling inside him once he has managed to sort out his immediate whereabouts and Loghain finds that he’s still quite disoriented and bleary after the draughts the mage has undoubtedly made him drink. Isabela. He knows _of_ her even if he cannot claim to know her. Hawke, for all her reluctance to speak of her personal affairs, could never entirely avoid revealing her feelings for her partner and he vaguely remembers Elissa - there’s the usual twist and spark in his chest as her image surface in him -  being acquainted with her as well.   
  
Later that evening - or so the mage claims, he can’t see enough of the outside to tell whether or not she’s telling the truth - he feels a bit better and ventures an attempt at sitting. It fares reasonably well. Backed up by coats and blankets and strengthened by a fresh healing draught, Loghain sits up as they take their supper, all three of them.   
  
“Not really _food_ ,” Isabela, the pirate, says and stirs the stew with a face of quiet disgust. “But it’s better than starving. Or so I’ve heard.”  
  
Loghain remembers - now that he’s been able to look into his memory a bit further - that Elissa has met Bethany on several occasions, even having served a bit as a mentor for the girl. Looking at the mage with that new insight, he can’t help but think of Elissa and Ferelden and there’s a pull in him at the thought, a restless sort of beat making him wish he was there with them, with _her_.   
  
“Hawke fought well,” he says, looking at the pirate who seems to freeze slightly at the name. “I’m sorry.”  
  
A great deal of days have passed since the Fade but he will never forget their brief stay there, the terror and turmoil and that fractured sensation of being a foreign creature inside your own dream. Trapped on a plane of existence he can’t even say for certain he believes in, not the way one believes in strategy or equations, clearly drawn lines around events past and present.    
  
Both women are silent and Loghain takes a bite of his food, trying to avoid looking too closely at its colours and texture.   
  
“Bethany claims she’s not gone,” Isabela explains after a moment’s hesitation.   
  
Loghain blinks.   
  
“Not gone?”  
  
“There’s no feeling of _emptiness_ around her,” the mage looks at him without properly looking at him. She’s reluctant to speak of the matter, he can tell. As he would he be, had he nursed his wishful thinking into hard beliefs the way she appears to have. Not even fools want to appear as such. “It is difficult to explain.”  
  
Isabela on the other hand wears the grief wrapped up within her gaze. It flares up when she meets Loghain’s now, expectantly.   
  
“What do you think?” she asks. “You were there.”  
  
“I could not say.” He looks straight at her, thinks about all the times when he’s told someone their wife or son is dead, all the times he has not been the bringer of the news but the cause, all the same. Thinks about the number, the _infinite_ number of soldiers dying on his watch and behind his back and suddenly his throat feels thick. “Truly, I cannot say. But I would be surprised to see her again.”  
  
Neither of them speak again for a long while and when they do, it’s not about Hawke.   
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
“It’s another day.”   
  
The words rise above the loud snoring coming from the bedroll near the entrance to their tent, the somewhat vibrating rhythm that has quickly become the backdrop to his thoughts this evening.   
  
Loghain frowns into the darkness ahead of him, scratching the back of his head. “I beg your pardon, mage?”  
  
Hawke’s sister has been sitting quietly beside him for a while now as the evening has passed over into night but not brought any peace to mind or body. There’s a growing unrest in him, similar to the one he had felt when the false Calling first emerged, pushing aside his every idea and emotion, breaking inside his very being with its twisted little voices.    
  
“You said before that the story of how you were injured was one for another day,” she clarifies. Her voice is pleasant and soft, falls gently around them. It reminds him faintly of Celia’s voice, makes him think of calm moments in between the riots and rebels of their lives, somewhere on the verge of all of his endless trips to Denerim. They had peace, once. _Maker only knows how we managed to corrupt it._ “It is another day now.”  
  
He inclines his head, briefly, and clears his throat.   
  
“The Wardens attacked,” he says then, still not entirely certain it’s the truth. “They are raising the darkspawn, awakening the Old Gods.”   
  
“Like Adamant?” Her voice is a shallow breath, thin as the air around them.   
  
The stench of Weisshaupt, still burning. The imprints of magic, of blood, of a whole chunk of the world being twisted and torn. Loghain sighs, tired beyond comprehension.   
  
“Worse,” he says, simply.


End file.
